The first in a series of vertical forums from the IAB looked at the automotive sector.

Friday, 2 May 2008

The automotive sector has climbed the ranks in the online advertising industry to become the second highest spender after recruitment, it accounts for 12.9% of the total market. We gathered together a range of experts to cover the aspects most relevant to a car brand’s success online, Duncan Walters of iCrossing, Richard Trinder from Google, Agency Republic’s Alistair Campbell, Yogi Mistry from Vibrant Media and Tribal DDB’s Craig Morgan.

Proceedings kicked off with Duncan Walters discussing the effectiveness of social media on a car's brand online. He outlined how the traditional car buying process has changed in line with the shift in the consumer’s online behaviour. There has been a seismic shift from channels to networks. Forums/blogs, review sites, and social sites are places where brands are fervently discussed by consumers, and where brands can be made or broken by peer reviews. Walters discussed how advertisers need to embrace the opinions of consumers whether positive or negative and work with consumers to ‘understand their language’, ‘the brand experience has been revolutionised’.

Google’s Richard Trinder then took to the stage to talk about the importance of search. A Google study outlined how it is now the most common starting point for the car buying process. Consumers use search to explore the internet for vehicle information and to gain an overall view of the quality of the car. This has therefore meant that car dealerships are no longer the holders of all the information. Consumers now enter the showroom fully researched and prepared. Trinder also commented that customers would easily look at another car brand if a manufacturer’s site didn’t deliver, as consumers have increasingly high expectations of what they view online. The internet is one area that needs to be embraced by advertisers otherwise they run the danger of losing important customers.

Next up Alistair Campbell stated that consumers don’t read copy, they would prefer to have the choice between whether to just engage with imagery surrounding the vehicle or copy based descriptions about the car. Campbell emphasised the importance of being able to deliver both to satisfy the needs for all demographics. He added that the brand experience should become more interesting as the consumer progresses. The initial intrigue may be born from a TV ad, but online needs to offer something more, for example they should have the chance to interact with the car, view it inside and out, choose the colour, add accessories etc. This then leads onto the consumer booking a test drive from that interactive experience. Online should act as an optimal content based medium that interests the consumer more than their first exposure to the product.

Yogi Mistry outlined the in-text contextual advertising available to advertisers whereby specific brand terms can be attributed to videos, with a slight hover of the mouse of the word underlined. This is another opportunity for car brands to engage with consumers in places they visit the most e.g. car review sites.

Last but not least we had Craig Morgan discussing the creative showcase winning website for VW. The configuration tool available allows consumers to perfect their dream VW car, by choosing colour, engine size, type of wing mirrors, car interior etc. All this extra added functionality makes the consumers’ car buying more of an experience than ever before. The traditional ‘moment of truth’ that was experienced with a product at home when it was first used has now been replaced by the internet, consumers get to test drive products using their own PCs to an extent. ‘The real car show room experience should be available online with slight nuances’.

• View our brand engagement study on small car brands

• Take a look at the VW and other past car winning campaigns from our Creative Showcase.